This is the question I have been getting a lot. When I left Seattle I knew this: I was going to Alaska and had plans up to September 3rd. That is the day I put my dad on a plane back to NY. After that…. My life was an open book. So here I am, September 5th ready to start the next chapter of this journey. Phew. It’s exciting and a bit un-nerving all in the same breath. It’s a bit like standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, the world falling away at your feet. Expansive. It reminds me of that saying about faith… when you come to the edge and have to step off – faith is knowing there will be something for you to stand on… or you will be given wings to fly? The saying is more animated than that…. But you get the gist.

So here I go…. The next month I’ll be spending out on the land of my friends Jenna & David. They have a lovely piece of property on the Tanana River. They live a fairly sustainable/primitive lifestyle. While they have a town house (which is a small cabin with no running water) they spend much of their time on the land. They started 3 years ago with one structure – a mostly traditional Athabascan earth hut – which they built with materials from the land. Now they have a few wall tents and have erected a large gazebo where they process fish, berries and meat. They have a smoke house and spend much of September putting up fish for the dogs this winter. This involves sein net fishing then filleting and drying hundreds of pounds of chum salmon. After this fall, I should be the person you want at your next salmon bake to fillet the fish!

I said this year is about experiencing different ways of living and listening to my heart. At present my heart wants to be close to the land, it wants to return to a more simple and rugged existence. While I enjoy the leisure of latte’s, bookstores, classroom teaching and the gems of Seattle, I want a break from concrete and pace of life in the city. I crave quiet, a star studded sky, to wake up and move through the day with the rhythms of nature. I want to be closer to the source of my existence. I anticipate it might be hard, it will certainly work my body having to cut wood simply to have a fire to keep warm and cook! I’m ready to trade out my worries from preparing lesson plans, dealing with traffic and navigating my computer to providing for my day to day needs.

Stay tuned…. We’ll see what this simple and rugged existence has to offer me!